News:

The Book of the Diner is well worth preserving. I only wish it had reached a broader audience when it might have mattered more. That is a testament to the blindness of our culture. If there is a future to look back from, one difficult question historians will have to ask is how we let this happen, when so many saw it coming. This site has certainly aggregated enough information and critical thinking to prove that.[/b]

After naturalist and author Doug Peacock served two tours as a Green Beret medic in Vietnam, he went into the American wilderness to confront his demons. There, he closely observed grizzlies across the west—an experience he says “saved his life.”

Below, Peacock talks about the government’s recent decision to delist grizzlies and why now—more than ever—we need to “fight like hell” to save them.

By Mikael Holter (Bloomberg) — Can Norway dump $35 billion in oil and gas investments, and simultaneously convince that same industry to throw money into the country’s own fossil-fuel future?

After the initial shock of learning that Norway’s $1 trillion wealth fund wants nothing to do with it, the petroleum industry says both are in fact possible.

But the mood is shifting. While the fund said its proposal is about spreading risk and doesn’t imply a negative outlook on the oil industry, the plan reverberated as a nod from western Europe’s biggest oil producer to the uncertain future facing oil.

SNIPPET 2:

Confident Lobby

The proposal needs approval from Norway’s government and possibly even Parliament. Crucially, it has no bearing on the terms offered to oil companies operating offshore Norway, said both Industry Energy and the Norwegian Oil and Gas Association , a lobby group for companies such as Royal Dutch S , Total SA and Exxon Mobil Corp. — all companies that could be dropped by Norway’s wealth fund if the proposal is implemented.

SEATTLE’S DEMOCRACY VOUCHERS REDUCE THE POWER OF BIG MONEY AND INCREASE POLITICAL PARTICIPATION

Seattle’s new Democracy Voucher Program is reducing the power of big money and giving everyday people a bigger voice in local elections, according to initial analysis of the system in this year’s municipal elections by the Seattle-based Win/Win Network and national money-in-politics reform group Every Voice Center.

In 2017, the program went into effect for the first time, distributing four $25 Democracy Vouchers to every Seattle resident for use in two at-large city council races and the contest for city attorney. The program will expand to other races including the race for mayor in future election cycles.

To qualify to spend the vouchers, candidates agreed to only accept small donations of $250 or less, raise a threshold number of small contributions, gather signatures, and agree to limit their campaign spending. Use of the program was widespread in 2017, with 13 out of the 17 candidates in the primary election agreeing to participate, and six of them meeting the qualification requirements to redeem the vouchers. Five out of the six contestants in these races who advanced to the general election ran using Democracy Vouchers.

As the following analysis details, Seattle’s Democracy Voucher Program is achieving its intended goals by generating historic numbers of new and small donors, diversifying the makeup of campaign supporters to better reflect the people of Seattle, and limiting the reliance on big money in local elections.

Using data currently available, our initial analysis of the 2017 election surfaced these key findings:

• At least 25,000 Seattle residents—a historic number—participated as campaign donors in thiselection cycle, three times the roughly 8,200 residents who donated to candidates in 2013.

• As of publication, more than 18,000 Seattle residents gave nearly 70,000 Democracy Vouchers to2017 candidates, and more Democracy Vouchers are likely to be received before the December 1deadline.

• An estimated 84 percent of this election cycle’s Seattle donors were new donors—about 20,900individuals who had not contributed to city candidates in the 2015 or 2013 cycles. Among thesenew donors, 71 percent were voucher donors.

• Contrasting voucher donors to city council and city attorney candidates with cash donors to mayoralcandidates in 2017, Democracy Voucher donors better reflected Seattle’s population includingyoung people, women, people of color, and less affluent residents.

• Candidates in races eligible for Democracy Vouchers relied less on big money. Instead, 87 percentof the support for their campaigns came from small donations of $250 or less and DemocracyVouchers. By contrast, small donations accounted for just 48 percent of the money backing candidatesfor city council and city attorney in the 2013 elections.

Since his college years, Paul Ryan has been fantasizing about cutting Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid. Now, U.S. Senator Bernie Sanders has featured Social Security Works’ very own Alex Lawson, Nancy Altman and Jasmine Jefferson in an important video to break down Paul Ryan and the Koch brothers’ long game to destroy our earned benefits.

Agelbert NOTE: This is one tension filled event. The actual tape is played. A training instructor expert that happened to be on board said, "We'll have a beer after this". The Captain replied, "I don't drink but I'll sure as shit have one."

As a former air traffic controller, I also got a laugh about when ATC at the airport cleared the flight to land "on ANY runway". Even the Captian laughed! Pause the video as the written info on the screen shows so you can grasp how horrendously difficult the situation they were in was. Controlling any aircraft heading with differential thrust is a a royal bag of wiggly worms. Controling the pitch attitude is even more tricky, especially when you want to reduce your speed. The airplane wants to porpoise on you (phugoid cycle). Every porpoise sets you up for too high a descent on the bottom part of the cycle to avoid a bad crash. So, You have to keep the speed up and the porpoising down to less than a 700 feet per minute descent rate until you are almost on the runway. Normal landing speed is about 130 mph. This aircraft had to be at about 190 mph to remain stable with gear down and no flaps. The fact that everybody wasn't killed is a testament to the skill and professialism of the cockpit crew.

Even Scientists Were Blown Away by These Weird Sea Creatures They Found

November 21, 2017

SNIPPET:

Scientists aboard the ocean-exploring ship the E/V Nautilus have been prowling the ocean for wonders since 2008, literally just exploring the seas.

So after spotting a sperm whale, a googly-eyed squid, and a host of other wonders, you’d think they may be jaded. It turns out they are not. Case in point: their reactions to finding a vampire squid and a Deepstaria jelly on a recent journey around the Revillagigedo Archipelago, a series of islands about 375 miles off Mexico’s Pacific coast.

They brought back video captured from a Remotely Operated Vehicle (ROV), including hosting an impromptu laser light show on the jelly (Pink Floyd soundtrack not included). According to the E/V Nautilus YouTube page, this is the first ROV footage ever captured around the Revillagigedo Archipelago.

Deepstaria jellies typically occupy cold waters around the Arctic and Antarctic, making their appearance here, even in the cold depths of the tropical Pacific, somewhat of a mystery.

Now That Keystone XL Could Go Forward, Let's Talk About That Oil Spill a Bit MoreYessenia Funes

November 20, 2017 2:39pm Filed to: KEYSTONE XL

SNIPPET:

Meshkati has traveled around the world to visit sites that have seen true devastation at the hand of humans: Fukushima, the BP Deepwater Horizon oil spill and explosion in the Gulf of Mexico, and the Chernobyl Power Plant.

“I have seen what a manmade disaster can do,” he said. “[TransCanada was] very lucky.”

StorEn TechnologyCost is crucial for the adoption of energy storage. Our work is about bringing evolution to the technology with the objectives to improve performance as a way to drive down costs. We developed a disruptive battery technology based on both chemical and engineering solutions, leading to a 50% cost reduction. We are targeting a price of $400/kWh with a 25 year duration with no decay.

The great breakthrough is our innovative high-power electrodes made with nanomaterials and a proprietary functionalization process. With this innovation we have doubled power density over traditional batteries, while running at low pressure.

The ability to run at low pressure means that less of the battery’s own energy is required to run the pumps, hence round-trip efficiency is increased. Additionally, duration of the battery is also increased. To support the electrochemical activity, we couple our Hi-Power Nano-Structured Carbon Electrode to our MULTIGRID™ multipoint flow distribution to deliver an increase in power in excess of 50%.

We also wanted to make a battery that was virtually maintenance-free, like a car battery, for trouble-free operations and reduced Total Costs of Ownership. We developed two proprietary systems, RESAFE™ and EQUILEVELS™. These two systems support a battery that is virtually maintenance-free by eliminating service activities.

Our battery can be monitored remotely with our built-in BMS (Battery Management System). Therefore we implement a shift from scheduled on-site inspections to a maintenance-on-demand model. For example, if one of our batteries was installed in a remote telecommunications tower for power back-up, remote monitoring can reduce or eliminate the need for periodic on-site visits, which can translate in significant cost savings.

Wapusk National Park in Canada protects one of the world's largest concentrations of polar bear maternity dens (where female bears give birth). Tune in during the months of October and November, when polar bears congregate here at Cape Churchill waiting for the sea ice to form. The bears depend on the sea ice as a platform from which to hunt ringed seals, their main food source.

I first encountered McLuhan as an undergraduate in communication back during the last ice age. Interesting to be reminded how he anticipated the implications of then-technological changes, when at the time it read, at least to be, as improbable nonsense.

This writer is addressing themes that occur to me, but which are too elusive for me to be competent to write about. One of the attributes of getting older being the you see your own ignorance in sharp relief.

In the above, otherwise well written, article, there is a problem of perception that I first ran into in college when I was taking Social Sciences at Miami Dade Junior College (1965) shortly after I left West Point.

We were assigned to read a book (The Lonely Crowd) that you may have read, although I am certain the right wing 'greed is good' fanatics that frequent this site have never heard of it, no matter how much college or education they claim to have.

Quote

The Lonely Crowd is a 1950 sociological analysis by David Riesman, Nathan Glazer, and Reuel Denney. It is considered, along with White Collar: The American Middle Classes, written by Riesman's friend and colleague, C. Wright Mills, a landmark study of American character.[1]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Lonely_Crowd

I read it. I did NOT just read the Cliff Notes. Beyond the snippet I just gave you from wikipedia, I did not review the book I read so many years ago to impress anybody here. I am responding to the article because that instantly retrieved "The Lonely Crowd" out of long term storage in my memory banks.

Here's the deal, Surly. A person is either driven by outside influences (peer pressure) or he is not. Yes, we all have a mixture of influences, both from without, and from within, that govern our behavior. But the ASSUMPTION that we are invariably governed by peer pressure is only valid if peer pressure ALWAYS overrides personal principles. Now, those Social Darwinst fascists at the helm of the media corporations that want to control our every whim probably believe that.

I do not. And you should not. A shit sandwich disguised as a chocolate chip cookie is still a shit sandwich, even if 40,000 bought and paid for bullshit artists are telling you otherwise.

What this boils down to is perception. The media fascists are attempting, as our gooberment and happy talk propaganda based social institutions have ALWAYS been trying to do (SEE: The Lonely Crowd), the "join the in crowd" con. They want us to feel "left out" if we do not do what "everybody else is doing".

But you and I know that everybody else is NOT "doing that". The polling of the American public makes it CRYSTAL CLEAR that they are on the right side of almost every issue of importance and value to an egalitarian socialist type government structure.

AND, most people, except for the allegedly big brained right wingers (like some who post here, who claim most people in the USA are ignorant rubes that swallow any bullshit, no matter how much it harms their best interests - how convenient for the right wing profit over people and planet Capitalist bastards.), DO REALIZE they are being handed a daily SHIT sandwich by the media and the gooberment.

Yeah, divide and conquer is what is going on. Yeah, they want to tear us apart. Yeah, they want to use the PERCEPTION (totally FALSE, but very convincing through bought and paid for repetition) that people who are guided by principle and not by the mob are outliers (i.e. anti-American/anti-Capitalist/Communists, etc. ad nauseum).

True, we all want to belong. But anyone who is willing to sacrifice their principles in order to "belong" is part of the problem, not part of the solution.

The article gives way to much weight to our need for peer group acceptance and ZERO weight to every average human's daily objective analysis of what is genuinely good for an individual and the society that he lives in (i.e. PRINCIPLED behavior).

I am not a Maslow robot. If the author believes that we humans, who certainly do possess base instincts that can, under certain conditions, be manipulated to our detriment and some bastard's profit (i.e. Capitalism), CANNOT function in any other way (i.e. Social Darwinsm is IT), then I must protest.

Social Darwinsim is NOT "IT". Maslow is NOT "IT".

We behave on principle or we perish. That is not hard to understand unless a person deliberately refuses to value principles because they deliberately refuse to give any value to morality based behavior. The book I read in college, The Lonely Crowd, TOTALLY missed the issue of principle. I said so then, even though I was an atheist at the time! LOL!

This is an example of a human that acted on principle, NOT on Maslow's hierarchy of selfish (SEE: Social Darwinsm) needs. The reason people like you and I find this sort of news heartwarming is because we understand, at a moral level, that this sort of behavior has merit that selfish, empathy deficit behavior does not.

The mockers are quick to claim we would all go broke if we behaved that way. That's hyperbole and a deliberate distortion of principled behavior to make it look like "irresponsible" behavior. The 'greed is good' crowd have been at that mendacious game since humans began to live in communities. Their mendacious claim, cleverly disguised as "prudent" advice, is, though they don't know it, Orwellian.

The fact is that achieving a society based on altruistic behavior is the only way that humanity will survive. This is the exact opposite of what the Social Darwinist Religionists believe.

Anybody with a lick of sense can see that human society is NOT getting better. Yet, most of those Social Darwinsits that point out the increasingly dangerous dysfunction of our society FLAT REFUSE to see the exact correlation between an increase in socially celebrated selfish behavior and the massive increase in social dysfunction.

I think I know why.

Quote

Proverbs 1430 A sound heart is the life of the flesh: but envy the rottenness of the bones.

31 He that oppresseth the poor reproacheth his Maker: but he that honoureth him hath mercy on the poor.

Statoil To Focus On Development Of “Clean” Light-Crude Oil, CEO Says (To Focus On Fossil Fuel Extraction For Decades To Come)

November 23rd, 2017 by James Ayre

SNIPPET:

The CEO went on to state that Statoil would remain focused on oil and gas extraction for decades to come, and that demand will remain strong.

An attitude which was paraphrased helpfully by the writers over at Reuters as: “There’s oil, and then there’s oil.”

Yeah, that’s pretty much what Statoil CEO Eldar Saetre’s comments amount to. Yes, it’s true that some oil reserves are more energy intensive to develop than others … but that’s really besides the point — if extreme anthropogenic climate change is to be curtailed, then effectively all of the world’s oil reserves will need to remain in the ground.

I’m aware that that’s very, very unlikely to happen, but that reality doesn’t justify the doublespeak that’s so common nowadays (seemingly across all sectors, and all political parties) and that is being used to keep business-as-usual going even as climate collapse gets closer by the day.